TSR The Dueling Essays of Arneson & Gygax

A recent article and documentary about Dave Arneson's involvement in Dungeons & Dragons shares a different perspective on the game's creation, with a particular emphasis on Rob Kuntz's testimony. Some of it contradicts what Gary Gygax positioned as D&D's origins. Fortunately we can read what both designers thoughts in their very own words -- published in the same book.

Alzrius pointed out that both Arneson and Gygax contributed essays to Lawrence Schick's Heroic Worlds. What's startling is how their essays contradict each other just pages apart.

Heroic Worlds, published in 1991, was an attempt to catalog every tabletop role-playing games publication. It was a massive undertaking that was possible only because of the limited scope of the hobby. Thanks to electronic publishing, the Open Game License, and the Internet, tabletop gaming products have exploded -- DriveThruRPG has over 30,000 products alone -- making it impossible to produce a book of this scope ever again. It also provides a snapshot in time of the thoughts of various game designers, including Steve Jackon, Jennell Jaquays, Tom Moldavy, Sandy Petersen, Ken St. Andre, Michael Stackpole, Greg Stafford, Erick Wujcik and more.

Arneson kicks off the D&D controversy on page 131:

My first set of miniatures rules was for fighting out battles with sailing ships. This led me to meet several people, including Gary Gygax, at an early GenCon. These people later participated in a historical campaign I refereed. When I began refereeing what later became D&D in Minnesota, I mentioned it to them. They were interested, and when some of us went down to visit we all played this strange game...the lads in Lake Geneva got turned on to it. Tactical Studies Rules, a Lake Geneva-based game company, was already publishing historical rules and was willing to do D&D.

Gygax follows up on the origins of D&D in a short one-page essay on the very next page:

In the late 1960s a club called the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association met weekly at my home for military/naval miniatures gaming. From this activity sprang Chainmail. The D&D game was drawn from its rules, and that is indisputable. Chainmail was the progenitor of D&D, but the child grew to excel its parent.

This point is disputed by RPG archivist, Paul Stromberg, in the Kotaku article, "Dungeons & Deceptions: The First D&D Players Push Back On The Legend Of Gary Gygax":

“People think that Blackmoor arose from Chainmail, and thus Chainmail gave rise to Dungeons & Dragons. That is not correct,” said Stormberg, the RPG historian. While Chainmail, amongst other things, was an influence on Blackmoor, Arneson’s game was “entirely new,” he said. “It’s a game entirely unlike Chainmail. It’s like saying a Rodin uses red and a Picasso uses red so they’re the same style of painting.”

This perspective is shared by Arneson himself in his first essay:

Contrary to rumor, the players and I were all quite in control of our mental processes when D&D was designed. I also hasten to point out hat the Chainmail connection was the use of the Combat Matrix and nothing more. Find a first-edition Chainmail and compare it to a first-edition Original D&D someday and you will see that for yourself: not a hit point, character class, level, or armor class, much less any role-playing aspects in Chainmail.

Arneson's perspective on the game industry comes through in the other essays scattered throughout the book. Here's his version of how Blackmoor came about:

I originally began with a simple dungeon and expanded it into several dungeons loosely organized as a campaign. The rules were not really an organized set, more notes on what I had earlier. Today people expect a lot more detail, coherency, organization, and story.

Here's Arneson's thoughts on writing a scenario:

When I design a scenario, sometimes the plot or situation will come from books I read, and sometimes it just pops into my head...Changes are made, and then the work is sent off to be butchered--er, ah, edited, I mean...The original Blackmoor supplement included what was the very first published scenario. My intention was that it would serve as a guideline for other GMs to design their own. Instead, it spawn an entire "service" industry. Oh, well...

And finally here's what Arneson thought of the game industry:

My serious advice to the would-be role-playing-game author will sound cruel and heartless, and most will be offended and not listen. To would be game designers I say: seek useful employment in another field...play your own house rules with your friends and associates; it will be less painful and far more fun. (On the other hand, frankly, I wouldn't have listened to an old fogey like me.)

Gygax's thoughts on the subject of D&D are well-known; Arneson's less so, and Heroic Worlds is a trove of his perspective on tabletop gaming and publishing, undoubtedly informed by his legal tussles with TSR. The difference between Arenson and Gygax's approach to gaming is starkly illustrated in their essays. And yet, despite their long and sometimes antagonistic history, Gygax ends his essay on a hopeful note:

Dave Arneson and I have spoken frequently since the time we devised D&D. We don't plan to collaborate on another game, but just maybe one day he'll decide to combine talents again.

Did Gygax mean "we'll" instead of "he'll"? Gygax ends the essay with our only answer: Who knows?

 

[Yaarel]

This seems really a common problem when you look back at something that blew up to become big today. It was slapdash ideas and something came out of it.

No one was keeping track of this stuff and then years pass and memory gets fuzzy. Interesting read.

Actually, the Arneson group was keeping track of their own stuff.

They have transcripts of the game sessions that they played.

They can prove who invented the Wizard, who invented the Rogue (‘Thief’), and so on.

Arneson and his players invented it.



Besides rules change. 3e rules differ from 1e rules. 1e rules differ from 0e rules. And so on.

Gygax seems to make a big deal of the fact that Arnesons group adopted his Chainmail game for combat resolution. And for this reason, he feels he contributed to something to the invention of D&D. But Gygax himself eventually rejects his own Chainmail in D&D 1e. So it is difficult to define Chainmail as part of the invention of D&D.

Even if Gygax added some rules that Arnesons group didnt use.

The concept of D&D is what Arneson and his players invented.

 

[Yaarel]

Arneson and Gygax isn't an either/or. You can respect both of them for what they did.

I characterize them as a Yang and Yin dynamic, each responding to the other.

But in this relationship, Arneson is definitely the Yang. The energizing force of the concepts.

 

[Sacrosanct]

You either didn't read Rob's thread, or you have no idea what OD&D actually is or how it grew and morphed.

Well, thanks for clarifying it's the latter.

 

[Yaarel]

Well, thanks for clarifying it's the latter.

I apologize for creating doubt in your faith in a demigod.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Sacrosanct]

I apologize for creating doubt in your faith in a demigod.

Ironically, with this post you're just reaffirming you really didn't read that Kuntz thread at all. If you did, you'd have seen my several posts criticizing Gary.

But hey, when your argument has been debunked, I guess there's always attacking the person for holding a view they never did.

 

[Yaarel]

No. The Thief in OD&D came from Aero Hobbies, etc. That's pretty well documented.

David Megarry is the first Thief, one of the players in Arnesons game. He creates the character concept that is a Thief. He decides what a Thief needs to do, performs the first heist in Blackmoor, and Arneson figured out how to adjudicate it.

Pete Gaylord is the first Wizard.

Other players are the first Elf, the first Gnome, and so on.

The Arneson group invent these as they riff off of each other, and Arneson adjudicates their decisions.




SecretsOfBlackmoor.com
"Dave Arneson showed up in court with complete manuscripts. Multiple − like every version of D&D from Step One. And maybe even an unpublished manuscript. All of that. He gave all of that to his lawyers. And that’s what he showed up in court. And so, when it came down to it, the judge was like, Well, it is clear that both you guys are doing this. You can’t separate this out. AD&D is all Gary. But when it comes to D&D, it was both of them."

Here the opinion is that both Arneson and Gygax are bouncing ideas off each other.

But keep in mind, that these ‘transcripts’ are the game that Arneson’s group are playing, with or without Gygax. Arneson and his group are the ones who are deciding what D&D looks like.

Gygax himself says that the rules of Dungeons & Dragons (0e) are the result of the game that the Arneson campaign is playing.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Yaarel]

The rules for the Rogue in 5e differ from the rules for the Thief in 1e. But it is still correct to credit the legacy of the 5e Rogue to 1e.

Likewise, the rules for the Thief in 1e differ from the rules for the Thief in the Arneson campaign forming 0e. It is correct to credit the legacy of the Thief (and the Rogue) to the Arneson group, and to Megarry personally.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*